Thursday, March 27, 2008

Where's Johnny Cash to write a song?

Prison is a horrendous place. Just watch OZ or PRISON BREAK or old episodes of DAVID CASSIDY: MAN UNDERCOVER.

On Monday the Vermont Supreme Court will hear arguments in a class-action suit brought by inmates who are claiming a certain prison practice is cruel and unusual punishment. No, it’s not creating an environment that leads to relentless violence and brutal rape. That the inmates can live with.

But some prisons are serving Nutraloaf at mealtimes and the line of cruelty has to be drawn somewhere. (I can almost see you OZ spec writers racing to your computers.)

Nutraloaf is a prison created dish often given to inmates who are unruly or throw their normal food in the mess hall. Guards got tired of having to clean hand-cut fettuccini pasta with Sonoma lamb Bolognese, Hudson Valley foie gras, and pan-roasted French turbot off the walls. So they were served this meatloaf-like concoction instead.

This may be off topic, Ken...but my brother Michael will be at the Coliseum tomorrow for the Dodgers/Red Sox game. He came out from Boston just for the event, and I told him to listen to you afterwards.

I hear the food a comin'It's rolling round the bendAnd I ain't had good pasta since I don't know whenThey’re servin’ Nutraloaf now, and time keeps draggin' onIt's like eatin’ a shit sandwich, washed down with Gran Patrón

The prisons should just order the same ingredients in protein drinks and present it in juice boxes like they do for soccer kids and Beverly Hills bulimics. Lara Flynn Boyle could be hired as the celebrity spokesperson and be on all the new jail cell calendars. With the proper marketing program, even death row inmates will be demanding Nutraloaf as a last meal.

Nutraloaf probably costs $8 a pound at Whole Foods. (And it probably tastes better than the gruel known as "slop" they serve on "Big Brother.")

TB, "David Cassidy: Man Undercover" is a short-lived drama Cassidy was in soon after "The Partridge Family." (It was a spinoff from an actually good show, "Police Story.") He played a groovy, young-looking cop who would go undercover as a student or juvenile delinquent, "21 Jump Street"-style.

Tired of that boring old Nutraloaf? You know, the meatless meat substitute made from whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, potato flakes, powdered milk and -- rumor has it -- just a light sprinkling of potassium nitrate, aka saltpetre. The old samo-samo. (And btw what’s with the powdered milk? God forbid there might be a win-win in the Vegan wing?)

Well suffer no more my feckless felonious food freaks, it’s a new day in prison and about time to have yourself gormandized. With the assistance of our team of Fear Factor dietitians, we took this sucker to arbitration. It was a streak of luck (and perhaps a carton or two of cigarettes under the table) that the authorities failed to run spellchecker, sending over a meateater instead of a mediator.

So beginning Monday here at Café Correctionale, new from Pied Piper Pies, it’s Nutrialoaf. One-hundred percent protein from the world’s largest rodent, long coveted as a delicacy in South America. Yes, now here in America, that short-limbed, small-eyed, orange-toothed, coarse-haired, scaly tailed tasty delight, equally at home in the Amazon rain forest or on a bun. And we might add, said to be an excellent source of potassium. An aquatic herbivore that our Cajun culinary consultant Chef Parola [honest to God we are not making that name up] assures us in this cooking video is 22.1% protein with 50% less fat than chicken and, we are quoting here “half the cholesterol of a pig.” We don’t call it nutria for nothing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuXEaNdwrSs&feature=related

As you can see on the menu at video's end, Chef Parola gets $23.95 for a nutria entrée, but because you were fortunate enough to have been sentenced to hard labor at our Angola Maximum Security Correctional Institution, right here in Louisiana, you are even free to request seconds, really as much as you want -- because these suckers breed like rats.

Yes, nutria, flame broiled then cooked again in water – it’s natural habitat. Nutria, it’s what’s for dinner!” And here at Angola, also for lunch and breakfast.

Speaking of Prison Break (on your post) I hear they re-hired Sarah Wayne Callies to appear in the next season, after, they had her head in a box last year. I'm glad to see her back, but I wasn't expecting them to pull a "Patrick Duffy" on us again. I guess 20 years have passed, and so has the statute of limitations of that "Original" idea. It's "Undead" time, folks. Hope they can do better than they did last year.

About KEN LEVINE

Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created three series. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and Dodger Talk. He hosts the podcast HOLLYWOOD & LEVINE

Ken Being Social

Ken's Book Club

A collection of long-form Levine

MUST KILL TV: Ken's explosive and hilarious satire of the TV industry - now in paperback and Kindle